explaingit

herrbischoff/awesome-macos-command-line

★ 30,579Audience · developerComplexity · 1/5MaintainedSetup · easy

TLDR

A curated reference guide of macOS terminal commands and shell tricks for controlling your Mac beyond the graphical interface.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((repo))
    What it does
      Terminal commands
      Shell tricks
      Mac configuration
    Content type
      Documentation
      Reference guide
      Curated list
    Use cases
      Learn command line
      Automate Mac tasks
      Advanced configuration
    Status
      Moved to external host
      GitHub archived

Things people build with this

USE CASE 1

Learn macOS terminal commands to automate repetitive tasks on your Mac.

USE CASE 2

Find shell tricks to configure system settings and preferences without using the GUI.

USE CASE 3

Reference advanced command-line techniques for power users managing multiple Macs.

Getting it running

Difficulty · easy Time to first run · 5min
License could not be detected automatically. Check the repository's LICENSE file before use.

In plain English

This repository was a curated reference list of macOS terminal commands and shell tricks, a guide for using the macOS command line to control and configure a Mac in ways that are not available through the regular graphical interface. The maintainer has permanently moved the project to a personal hosting instance and the GitHub repository now only contains a notice explaining that move. The actual content lives at an external URL. No programming language is used since it was documentation only.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1
Show me how to use macOS terminal commands to disable Spotlight indexing on specific folders.
Prompt 2
What are some useful shell tricks for managing files and folders faster on macOS?
Prompt 3
How can I use the command line to change macOS system settings that aren't available in System Preferences?
Open on GitHub → Explain another repo

Generated 2026-05-18 · Model: sonnet-4-6 · Verify against the repo before relying on details.